Aquarius Update: Lift-off!

Hi, I'm Amit Sen. I'm at Vandenberg Air Force Base at the Mission Director's Center, where we just launched Aquarius/SAC-D and we had a fantastic launch.

We have ignition and lift-off of Aquarius and the SAC-D observatory on an international mission to study Earth's salty seas.

So we were ecstatic. We had a successful launch and we got into orbit just like clockwork.

And we have separation command

The rocket took us all the way around the world past Antarctica and right over Africa the rocket released the spacecraft. (Applause)

We have separation.

(Applause) Good spacecraft separation. Aquarius is now flying on its own.

It sent us signals down telling us, it is alive, it is well, and then the video that was captured by the rocket that told us the solar panel had been deployed and it was on its own, charging its own batteries.

And that gave us the positive confirmation that we're healthy, we're well and we're good to go.

I'm Amit Sen. This is the final update and thank you for being with us all through the journey.